COVID-19, #BLM, and the falling tower of CF

I’m feeling a lot right now. This was just a spur of the moment brain dump on the notes section of my phone; a form of catharsis at a time when I feel like the build up of things are getting to me more than I want them to. In this post, I’ll be referring to the sport as CF because… you know, they’re a litigious bunch and I don’t want to get sued. So here goes.

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This past week has been uncomfortable to say the least. And I get it. It’s meant to be. We, as whites, have had a mirror held up to us. I can speak for myself when I say, it hasn’t been pleasant. I’m learning a lot.

I won’t lie. I’m embarrassed. Embarrassed at how ignorant I’ve been previously. Embarrassed at how white washed my life has been. And embarrassed at how little I’ve done to change that. For a bit of context here, I come from a white middle-class family, went to all-girls private schools, and did gymnastics, swimming, and hockey – all overwhelmingly dominated by the white middle class. I’ve been that ‘white saviour’ who went to Ghana to volunteer, and now, learning about it, I’m ashamed of that. I have years of implicit bias to make myself aware of and work to undo. The only good thing I can take away from all this is that I am doing that, so that I can do my part in doing better. As we all have to.

And then Greg Glassman comes along with his trigger-happy fingers and almost single-handedly destroys another part of my world as a functional fitness athlete in a single email, and a single tweet.

The email communication is damning in his view of a long-time affiliate owner, but the tweet, combined with the lack of acknowledgement of the Black Lives Matter movement and solidarity with the fight eludes to the racism within HQ.

Now, as if there wasn’t enough instability in the world, the only remaining stable part of my life, training, and the part that helps me deal with the rest of the chaos is also in question. (This isn’t me saying that the chaos in the outside world isn’t justified. The BLM movement and protests absolutely are.) I fully support the boxes who have already chosen to step away and de-affiliate themselves from CF as an organisation. They are brave; they are taking a stand. However, I also appreciate as a coach that this decision is not as simple as it seems. It’s one thing to de-affiliate, but then what are we going to do if/once that has happened to promote diversity and actively be anti-racist as a community? As a box, we are having a lot of difficult conversations about what we can do, how we can address this, and what this might mean for us as a business, whilst monitoring communications from HQ to inform our decision. It’s not a comfortable time. The carpet has been well and truly torn from under our feet and unless something changes in CFHQ, the future of CF as an organisation literally hangs in the balance as the response of the community gains momentum.

As someone who aspires to one day get to the Games, this leaves an uncertain future. And then I feel stupid for having a pity party. I feel stupid getting stressed about the luxury of training when 1) people are fighting for their lives with COVID, and 2) people are fighting for basic human rights. There are more important things going on right now and I’m getting stressed about whether training is going well! Which it isn’t. Of course. Anyone who knows about the impact of allostatic load on training can understand why. I can’t push myself in the same way with this enlightenment of what is truly going on in the outside world. I can’t push myself in the same way whilst I’m wondering whether any of the events I’m training for will even be around. I can’t push myself knowing that this sport is run by a narcissistic, racist, fattist who will do anything to feed his own ego. Let’s not forget that he attempted to use the fact that those with comorbidities were at a higher risk of suffering more with the COVID to essentially fat-shame people into CF. Not cool, Greg. Not cool.

I know the community will survive. I know that we are better than the words of one out-of-touch white man. And I know that we will come out of this a better and more diverse group of people because of it, provided we do the work. One day, I hope we won’t be able to count the number of blacks competing at the top level on one hand and think “programming isn’t biased so anyone can get there” (I’ve seen that comment on CF posts a few times now). So for the moment, we keep fighting for equality, actively being anti-racist, educating ourselves and trying to encourage equal representation and opportunity. Because the words of one man do not represent the words of the community. Because everyone is welcome in our boxes, whatever name they hold. And because Black Lives Matter.